VervePress -- June 2010

Nothing screams "summer's here!" like a scrumptious Father's Day barbecue and the parades, picnics and pyrotechnics celebrating the 4th of July! And, this Independence Day brings us full circle with VerveCards, so we'll grab a little "wry and snappy -- never sappy" glory for ourselves, too! July 2nd marks our first anniversary of going LIVE to the world with a Bing! Bang! Boom! Oh, what a thrilling year it's been!

New & Spotlighted Categories

Focus on Fathers of Every Stripe -- Including the Founding Variety!

What breed of Dad or father figure will you be feting this Father's Day? A suave, debonair James Bondy sort; a devilish, rule-bending rogue; or a Pop who's pooped from the daily grind and in desperate need of a few zzzzzzzz's? And, on July 4th, in honor of our Founding Fathers' ability to put quill to parchment in a compelling way, let freedom rain -- and reign!

Holiday Redux

Uber Dad & Taxation Turmoil

Father's Day (June 20th)
During a Mother's Day sermon in 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd, a sleep-deprived new mother, was inspired to win equal billing for selfless Dads. Her own father, Henry Jackson Smart, had single-handedly raised six kids on a remote farm in Washington State after his wife died in childbirth -- the original Mr. Mom and then some! Grateful to have been spared foster care or a hastily recruited stepmom, Sonora now understood what a herculean feat he'd performed.

She chose June, her father's birth month, for the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, WA on June 19, 1910. The holiday met with initial skepticism and resistance -- 62 years' worth of petitions, committees and decrees, to be exact. In 1972, President Nixon finally established Father's Day as a permanent national holiday on the third Sunday in June.

Independence Day (July 4th)
Peeved to be paying taxes to England without representation in Parliament, the 13 American colonies decided that something had to give. They tried talking it out for more than a year to no avail. So, at a pow-wow in Philly, Thomas Jefferson and cohorts turned to the written word to officially cut ties with England -- voila the Declaration of Independence! Dates are fuzzy surrounding its drafting, signing and official adoption, but July 4, 1776 is the date that John Hancock signed with a mighty scrawl large enough for "King George to read without his spectacles." An odd coincidence: both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only two signers to eventually become president, died on the 50th anniversary of U.S. independence, July 4, 1826. Spooky!

Thank You

A Vervacious Thanks to Our Early Supporters!

Yeah, we're talking to YOU, our inaugural Ververs who made our first year possible! We're grateful to you in so many ways -- for taking a leap of faith while our "Coming Soon" indicator was still high in the saddle; for waiting patiently as we scrambled to fill 30 ecard categories with Verve-worthy offerings; and for helping us spread the Verve Word via email, Facebook and Twitter -- and, of course, for sending all those ecards!

Thanks, too, for your honest feedback -- keep it coming to the Tell Us link on our Home page! Our Adoption and Mazel Tov ecards were born of member requests -- ditto for the "chin up/tough times" and "just because" Thinking of You ecards we'll be introducing shortly.

In addition to plumping up our existing categories, we'll be adding these new categories in the not-too-distant future, as well:

Rosh Hashanah -- Watch for a stunning array of ecardaica in time for the Jewish New Year!!

Sympathy (Human and Pet) -- Apparently even condolences have gone virtual -- who knew?

Apology -- For the well meaning wimp in all of us -- and because an e-apology with a pinch of levity is better than no apology at all!

Straight Shooters -- For you tell-it-like-it-is, no-nonsense types who like your greetings straight up, no ice!

Multiculti -- For the multi-lingual and worldly wannabes out there in Verveland -- ecards with that certain je ne sais crois! Que bien!

We look forward to another Vervacious year together -- and welcome your feedback, so we can make VerveCards the best it can be!